Unborn Child Kicks Mother, Injures Her: Doctors

A pregnant woman in China nearly died right before she gave birth—because of the strength of her unborn baby’s kick.

The woman, who only gave the surname Zhang, gave birth to her child at 35 weeks via a C-section. She and her child are in stable condition, said the Peking University Shenzhen Hospital in southern China, MailOnline reported.

The child kicked a wound inside the woman’s uterus, which was left over from a prior operation.

The hospital posted a statement on its social media page, saying that the woman suffered severe pain for five hours before she was taken to the medical facility. Zhang and her family thought she simply had a stomach ache.

But after a scan, doctors saw the baby’s leg in a strange location. Doctors suspected that she had a uterine rupture near where a previous incision had been done.

The baby was delivered 10 minutes after the C-section.

A doctor involved in the operation said that women who get fibroid-removal operations, which is what Ms. Zhang had, should wait for one to two years before they decide to have a baby.

According to medical website Medscape, uterine rupture is not common. “Uterine rupture during pregnancy is a rare event and [usually] results in life-threatening maternal and fetal compromise,” it says.